Antique and Collectable Firearms and Militaria Headquarters
www.OldGuns.net
Newsletter
Number 12 - October, 2003
Celebrating Over Six Years Of Service To Our Collector Friends!
Copyright 2003. All rights reserved.

Any gun collector with the opportunity to visit the Washington, DC, area before December 31st NEEDS to include a visit to the National Firearms Museum (NFM) at the NRA Headquarters. They have a special, once in a lifetime, temporary exhibit "Exceptional Arms." It features some of the rarest and most historically significant arms known. There are over 100 items including historic flintlocks, a Whitworth sniper rifle, the only Pedersen device ever made for a M1917 rifle, John Garand's personal M1 rifle (serial number 1,000,000), outstanding presentation swords, beautiful target rifles, superb condition and/or extremely rare or historic handguns, and even a miniature railway cannon. These are among the very best items in the collections of members of the prestigious American Society of Arms Collectors. Most are never seen by the public, and to see them all at once is a delightful sensory overload. The $10 exhibit catalog filled with sharp photos of the items is highly recommended, so we can savor it again when we get home (to our more humble accumulations).

This is probably the finest exhibit of arms since the "Samuel Colt Presents" exhibit at Hartford in the 1960s, and covers a much broader field so there are treasures that will dazzle and delight any arms collector. You definitely do not want to miss this one!

The permanent exhibits of the NFM are superb in their own right and well worth one or more visits, and they are done in a way that will appeal to all family members, not just "gun people." THe "Exceptional Arms" exhibit will close December 31st, but the other fine exhibits will remain.

Plan on two hours or more to enjoy all of this. There is an excellent cafeteria on the first floor of the other part of the NRA headquarters building, so you can eat lunch there.

Location: Fairfax, VA- 11250 Waples Mill Rd. From the Washington Beltway (I-495), take I-66 west to Exit 57-A onto U.S. Route 50 East toward Fairfax. On Route 50, turn left at the first traffic light, onto Waples Mill Road. The blue and white NRA Headquarters building will be on your right. The National Firearms Museum is located on the 1st floor south tower. Go through the center driveway and free parking is in the back. Free admission, and hours are 10:00-4:00 daily except major holidays. For additional information, call (703) 267-1600

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The Big Reno Show

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Darwin Award

Note: Darwin Awards are earned by those who remove themselves from the gene pool by extraordinarily stupid actions, demonstrating the survival of the fittest members of a species.) Used courtesy of http://www.darwinawards.com

(16 March 2003, Michigan) Ignoring Coast Guard warnings, David Manley ventured onto the icy surface of Saginaw Bay with his pickup truck one chilly morning. Predictably, the vehicle broke through the ice, but the 41-year-old managed to avert tragedy and escape from the sinking truck. He reached the shore wet and cold, but alive.

His companion survived, but David had used up his luck. His body was recovered by the Coast Guard southwest of the Channel Islands. An autopsy was scheduled to determine whether anything besides a desire to win a Darwin Award was a factor in his demise.

DarwinAwards.com © 1994-2003
Reference: Flint Journal

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If You are Not a NRA Member, You Should Be!

NRA memberships are still on sale at only $25, and make great Christmas presents, and if you get one for a family member you can specify a different magazine. As NRA membership continues to grow well past 4 million members, it just drives the liberals nuts. (Maybe even sign up your antigun neighbor or boss as a member- anonymously, of course, as a token of your esteem?)

A note from one of our customers-
"As a direct result of the information posted on your site regarding the recent ban of 50 caliber firearms in California, I have joined the NRA. As a collector, I cannot stand by any more and watch as our basic rights are assaulted by the left. While I dislike Wayne La Pierre intensely as a result of his careless comments subsequent to the Waco, TX debacle, [BATF agents = jackbooted thugs] I feel that I can ill afford to let that stand in my way of fighting the extremists." J.H.- Virginia

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Two Book Reviews

Japanese Military Rifles; and Uniforms and Equipment of the Imperial Japanese Army in World War II

It is the best of books. It is the worst of books. I like gun books, especially those that are well researched and loaded with useful information for collectors, and this one certainly meets that criteria. However, this is the ONLY book I have ever seen that has the totally idiotic layout where the pages are all laid out in "landscape" format and then bound in "portrait" format. It makes reading it a colossal pain in the butt. This is a totally inexplicable insult to readers. Previous edition were laid out and bound in "landscape" format and easy to use, so I do no know what bit of insanity or malice caused the authors to agree to this publishing format. Cut off their saki ration now and put them to work building railroads in the jungle or something before they screw anything else up.

As a happy user of earlier editions, I encountered the familiar well organized material, explaining the marking system used and Japanese arsenal system and the "type" system used to denote model numbers. Then an excellent summary of each model followed by detailed descriptions of variations of that model. For most Types, this includes a breakdown of each "series" (a prefix code on a block of rifles) pointing out features that changed during that series. All the standard rifles, and most carbine or sniper and many experimental variants are covered. There is an excellent section on foreign made rifles used by the Japanese and the training rifles, both full size conversion from service rifles and specially made smaller scale "youth" trainers. Separate sections cover each of the major accessories, such as grenade launchers, muzzle covers, monopods, slings, cleaning gear, ammunition and bayonets. While the bayonet section if adequate for most rifle collectors who merely want a pointy thing to hang on the end. However, for specialist bayonet collectors, Larry Johnson's superb "Japanese Bayonets" is far superior, and indirectly provides a lot of references to less common Japanese military rifles (other than WW2 era) not found in Honeycutt's book. (I keep begging Larry to get a revised edition done, and perhaps he will)

I know that there are a number of corrections and additions from material in earlier editions, but using this is such a pain that I could not bring myself to try to figure out what they were.

For anyone with an interest in Japanese Military rifles, you need a copy of this book, but unless you are a really fanatical collector, you will probably get about 95% of what you need from an earlier edition that you will enjoy using rather than the goofy 5th edition. Perhaps there will be a 6th edition that will revert to a reader friendly format, and it would be worth waiting for that. I really wanted to like this book, but was greatly disappointed to find it so annoying to use. Maybe you will not be bothered, but if you are, we warned you!

 

Mike Hewitt, Uniforms and Equipment of the Imperial Japanese Army in World War II, Schiffer Publishing, 2002, 288 pages 8.5" x 11, $59.95

 

While collectors have the choice of many books on U.S. and German military uniforms of WW2, up until now there has only been a single book on Japanese items, written in Japanese and of very limited usefulness. Mike Hewitt has done a superb job filling the need of collectors and historians for a comprehensive reference. This is well organized, starting with background info on Japanese dating systems, marking policies, Army organization, and examples of rank, branch and specialty insignia. One chapter clearly explains the three basic uniform series used (Type 5 (1930); Type 98 (1938) and the Type 3 (1943). Like most of the book, this chapter is filled with sharp, clear, well produced WW2 era photos showing the items discussed in the text, along with excellent color photos of items from collections so readers can see details. Other chapters cover undergarments, footwear, headwear, personal field equipment (packs, shovels, belts, etc), extreme climate uniforms, and soldiers' personal items. The personal item section includes all sort of items such as manuals, grooming, saki cups, farewell flags, family items, etc. The firearms chapter illustrates the basic types of small arms (rifles, pistols, bayonets, grenades) and accessories. While this chapter lacks sufficient detail to be helpful to gun or bayonet collectors, it is good to see it in a uniform book to help provide "the rest of the story" and context for military uniforms. Hewitt concludes with a page warning collectors about quasi-military uniforms and reproductions and fakes made for reenactors, movies, or crooks.

I was especially impressed with the thoroughness of the author's research, using primary sources and clearly anticipating the types of questions collectors would ask. That comes from his being a collector since his teenage years. His understanding and appreciation of military history stems from his service as a Marine Corps Reservist during his college years, and after getting his B.A. in History, he was commissioned as a Marine Corps officer, later serving in the Gulf War. He lived in Japan for eight years, and has a Japanese wife, which further explains his appreciation for the subject, and ability to gather information and the excellent photos used in the book. Schiffer is noted for high quality of their books, with good quality glossy paper,

Mike Hewitt's book is highly recommended as the definitive work on Japanese Army uniforms and equipment of WW2. Anyone with the slightest interest in collecting in this field needs to invest in a copy, and any museum would do well to add it to their reference library.

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The Newsletter Specials page only has guns, so don't forget to check all the regular catalog pages as we have added a lot of stuff in recent weeks that you may have missed.

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Poll For Our Newsletter Subscribers:

Please take a minute and give us your vote on this topic. Here is the question for you to think about, and the link to the poll is after the question. Please vote. (All responses are confidential and anonymous, and will not raise the price of your free newsletter.) Question:

How big is your gun collection?

Come on, be honest, we won't tell your spouse. Nor do we have any way of tracking who answers what, so the black helicopters won't visit your place. We just are curious as to how seriously addicted gun collectors can be. Maybe the results will enable you to convince her that you really need a few (lot?) more to catch up with other guys. Then you can point out that investing in collectible firearms (which they might consider rusty old junk) is much better than wasting money on beer, fast cars, loose women, or more clothes and shoes.

My collection has this many guns:

• Less Than 10
• 10-25
• 26-50
• 51-100
• 101-200

 

Click here to take the poll: (It only takes a few seconds to vote, see the results and return here)

Click here to see the results of the poll taken by our newsletter subscribers.

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We hope it was useful or interesting.  We invite you to visit Antique and Collectable Firearms and Militaria Headquarters, http://oldguns.net/ when you are ready to add to your collection, or even if you decide to sell all or part of it.
John Spangler & Marc Wade